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Klaus Graf and Lucas Luhr dominated the LMP1 field, running away with first place in the standings. Photo by LAT PHOTOGRAPHIC

Year in review: ALMS

December 22, 2013

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These last few years, the season-opening Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring has been a little hard to grasp for casual sports-car racing fans. The Audis come, the Audis go. The difference for this year's race on March 16 was it appeared the Audis weren't coming back next year after, as usual, dominating the 12 Hours. Audi took first and second place, both cars on the lead lap (364). The third-place Rebellion Racing Lola was five laps back. You had to go back to fourth place to find a car attending all 10 American Le Mans Series season's races: the Muscle Milk/Pickett Racing Honda ARX-03c.

Not only was 2013 the last year for the ALMS, it was the last year for the headlining LMP1 cars. That's why Audi has no interest in returning. Meanwhile the Muscle Milk car, the Dyson Lola-Mazda and the occasional appearance of the DeltaWing and the Rebellion guys were all the ALMS had for LMP1. The class went out more with a whimper than a snarl. Muscle Milk's Klaus Graf and Lucas Luhr ended up with 182 points, 100 more than the second-place team of Neel Jani and Nick Heidfeld of Rebellion, even though the Muscle Milk car finished the season with a 32nd-place finish in a 34-car field at Road Atlanta's Petit Le Mans Oct. 19.

Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia took home the top honors in a very competitive GT class. Photo by LAT PHOTOGRAPHIC

Eliminating LMP1 moves LMP2 up to the top class for 2014 where it will race against the Grand-Am Daytona Prototypes in the merged Tudor United SportsCar Championship. But even LMP2 wasn't looking all that healthy by season's end, with only four entries at Petit, all Honda ARX-03b models. Level 5 Motorsports owner and driver Scott Tucker took the LMP2 win at Petit and a second overall with co-drivers Ryan Briscoe and Marino Franchitti. Tucker also won the drivers' championship with 173 points, 10 more than second-place Scott Sharp in the Tequila Patron car. Sharp and co-drivers Anthony Lazzaro and David Brabham finished Petit third overall, second in class behind Tucker and Level 5.

The GT class was where the action was, with well-financed Chevrolet Corvette, SRT Viper, BMW Z4, Ferrari 458 Italia and Porsche 911 GT3 RSR teams battling it out. Wolf Henzler, Bryan Sellers and Nick Tandy won Petit in the Team Falken Porsche, with the factory Chevrolet Corvette C6.R of Oliver Gavin, Tommy Milner and Richard Westbrook taking Sebring. Corvette teammates Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia took the championship, though, with Gavin and Milner tied for third. In second place was Dirk Mueller in a Z4 for Team Rahal Letter-man Lanigan.

The spec Prototype Challenge-class standings ended up with PR1/Mathiasen driver Mike Guasch on top in the driver points, just a point ahead of Chris Cumming. It was the season's closest points race and came down to Petit, where Guasch's fifth-place in class finish was enough to keep him ahead of Cumming, whose BAR1 team finished fifth overall, first in class.

Finally, in the spec GT Challenge-class for Porsche 911 GT3 Cup cars only, Jeroen Bleekemolen and Cooper MacNeil took the drivers' championship in the Alex Job-prepared, WeatherTech-backed car just nine points ahead of Nelson Canache and Spencer Pumpelly, who won Petit for their Flying Lizard Motorsports team. They took the teams' championship.

Except for LMP1, every car racing ALMS in 2013 has a place in the USCC in 2014, though some will have more and different competition, with the Grand-Am classes mixed in. Though many sports-car fans will miss the ALMS, at least no one will have to worry about car counts on the grid in 2014.